In Spirit, but Not On Stage

This year’s theme, kicking off with our march and rally, is “Hear Our Vote,” centering on five actions:

Registering to vote

Mobilizing to the polls

Organizing locally, as even the many Americans who can’t vote are hugely impactful on elections

Electing more women - especially women of color - and allies

Running for office (women!)

So why, then, are some of the local female elected officials NOT on-stage this Saturday? Why are Supervisors Ronen and Lee Fewer selected from among their peers on a predominantly female Board of Supervisors to speak on behalf of women in politics?

The answer is simple. Women’s March Bay Area is a 501c3 and as such can’t engage in partisan politics. Any action that’d be potentially interpreted as endorsing a candidate puts our nonprofit status at risk, which in turn makes our organizing more challenging. We can’t feature any politicians engaged in an active campaign on-stage.

The irony is not lost on us that as we have a city and state that exemplify to the rest of the country what we’re hoping for in terms of representative politics, we won’t be able to directly pay tribute to the work of these women from our stage.

Please know we celebrate them. We honor them. We hope to see them among our marchers, and we’re happy to bring light to so many of the issues at stake in coming elections so they’re connecting to a more informed voter base in this summer’s special election and in the fall midterms.